nota-daw/nota v0.58.1

Nota 0.58.1

on GitHub

🎛 Nota 0.58.1 is out

Nota 0.58 is about racks and devices. Racks are rebuilt around one card and take MIDI effects, Mosaic and a whole Drum Rack; devices can be selected, grouped, moved to another track and copied with every setting. A sidechain can listen to a single drum pad, Windows gets ASIO, and every graph handle takes a typed value.

1. Racks, rebuilt
The Instrument, Audio Effect and new MIDI Effect Rack share one card: eight macros, Chains, Zones and Macros tabs, and the chosen chain's devices right on the card. An Instrument Rack chain now runs MIDI effects → instrument → audio effects like a track, and a chain can hold Nota Mosaic or a whole Drum Rack — a kit on one octave, a synth on the rest. Drop presets on a rack to start a chain, drag devices between chains, press Map and click a parameter to assign a macro, and use Mono and Glide on the Instrument Rack.

2. Devices you can pick up
⇧-click or ⌘-click to select several devices, then copy, delete, move them to another track or press ⌘G to fold them into the matching rack in place, sounding the same; ⌘⇧G takes it apart. The instrument is now a device too: select it, replace it with any other instrument or plug-in while keeping the clips, copy it or drag it to another track. Copy and paste keep every setting, ⌘D duplicates, and every device has its own × button.

3. Sidechain from a single pad
A key can listen to one pad of a Drum Rack, one chain of an Instrument Rack or one voice of Nota Rhythm instead of the whole track — duck the bass from just the kick, even when the kick is muted. Every sidechain picker lists the parts under their track, and there are 16 routes now instead of 8.

4. ASIO on Windows
Settings → Audio offers ASIO beside WASAPI: pick the driver and its channels by their own names and open the driver's panel to set the buffer, without a restart. Recording and monitoring share the driver's clock, and if the driver fails Nota falls back to WASAPI and says why.

5. Type exact values into graphs
⌥-click any graph handle — envelopes, EQ bands, filter pads, mod-matrix cells and more than twenty device graphs — and type its value in the units shown. Tab moves between a handle's values, and each typed value is one undo step and one automation gesture.

6. See the sound better
EQ-8 and EQ-3 get a real spectrum analyzer that reads pink noise flat, with Range and Peak hold. Nota Lens draws a tempo-synced scope with beat lines and a sidechain key overlay; Modular's Scope grows, pops out and freezes. EQ-8 bands take labels and notes.

7. A tidier arrangement
Return tracks take automation lanes, and return and master rows resize. Move clips with the arrow keys, drop them below the last track for a new one, and fold the piano roll to the scale's notes or a Drum Rack's pads. Devices remember their preset and mark when you changed it, and a plug-in's card shows a picture of its interface.

Added
• Rack cards redesigned around one card shared by the Instrument, Audio Effect and MIDI Effect Racks: eight macros, Chains, Zones and Macros tabs, the chain's devices as compact cards, macros mapped in place with ranges and curves, zones dragged by their edges (c01c0b9, a85331b)
• MIDI Effect Rack: chains of MIDI effects by key and velocity zone or selector, with transpose, velocity scale and merged output (c01c0b9)
• MIDI effects in Instrument Rack chains, Mono and Glide on the Instrument Rack, duplicate a rack chain, map a rack's selector to a macro, Nota Vocoder in rack chains (c01c0b9)
• Nota Mosaic and the Drum Rack in Instrument Rack chains, Mosaic on Drum Rack pads (a85331b)
• Presets drop onto racks to start a chain or replace its instrument; devices move, copy and paste between rack chains and the track's chain (a85331b)
• Select several devices and copy, delete, move or group them into a rack with ⌘G; ⌘⇧G takes a one-chain rack apart, with automation, modulation and sidechain keys kept (96f58ea, 2dc0f70, 1ba48d2)
• The instrument is a device: select, replace (built-in, rack or plug-in), copy, cut and paste it; Move to track ▸ or drag any device to another track, ⌥ to copy (4d7a711)
• A × Remove button on every device, ⌘D duplicates a device, and instruments drop into Session view (4d7a711, a85331b)
• Sidechain from a single Drum Rack pad, Instrument Rack chain or Nota Rhythm voice, Pre or Post its own effects (894fb59)
• ASIO on Windows, with driver channel names, the driver's settings panel, a shared clock for recording and a fallback to WASAPI (b19d80e)
• Type exact values into graph handles, envelopes and mod matrices: ⌥-click a handle, Tab between its values, Type value… and Reset to default in its menu (58f5732)
• A smooth, filled spectrum analyzer in EQ-8 and EQ-3, with Range and Peak hold in EQ-8 (e7053d0)
• Nota Lens: a tempo-synced scope with beat lines and a sweep, a sidechain key overlay, and its own window (fedebc9)
• Modular Scope: resizable, its own window, a time window in ms or beats, vertical zoom, a Rise trigger and Freeze (6c9143d)
• EQ-8 band labels and notes, shown on the graph (ba20a32)
• Devices remember their preset and add " *" when a parameter moves away from it (f85798c)
• A plug-in's device card shows a picture of its interface (macOS and Windows) (89bc635)
• Automation on return tracks, and resizable return and master rows (6bf8fbe)
• Fold the piano roll to the scale's notes or a Drum Rack's pads (⌥⇧F) (bc8830b)
• Move clips with the arrow keys, drop clips below the last track to make a new one, Shift-click track headers to select a range (065d54c)
• Mono or stereo audio input: Ext 1, Ext 2 or Ext 1/2 per audio track (c0a3df6)
• File → Exit (Ctrl+Q) on Windows and Linux (68e50a7)

Changed
• One click on a track's arm button arms that track alone; ⌘-click arms several. Auto-arm selected track is an option in Transport, off by default (c0a3df6, 0240fb9)
• A new Instrument Rack starts empty; drop an instrument or preset on it for the first chain (a85331b)
• Delete on the instrument deletes its track, asking first when it has clips (4d7a711)
• Return and master rows start compact (6bf8fbe)
• Splitting, trimming or cutting a long warped clip is instant, and long clips draw at full detail (84c5174)
• ⌥-click on a Consort patch-matrix cell or a Stereo Map handle types its value (58f5732)
• Searching Modular's palette for "peak controller", "ducking" or "loudness" finds the Envelope Follower (c0a3df6)

Fixed
• Copy, paste and duplicate keep every setting of a device (96f58ea)
• Drum Rack and Instrument Rack edits are undoable one step at a time, and undo puts back what the macros drive (96f58ea, c01c0b9, a85331b)
• Disarming a track releases notes held from live input (6843942)
• Session clips on muted or solo-silenced tracks start on time, and a loop without a bar line launches at its start (c0a3df6)
• An audio take in Session stops the track's playing clip (c0a3df6)
• Audio effects no longer vanish from the Browser after a search on another tab (c0a3df6)
• Drum Rack pads play their whole one-shot hit, and clicking a pad plays only the rack (80ef770)
• Turning Warp off and on keeps the clip's markers (80ef770)
• Linux: a built-in file chooser when the portal has none, file drops from more file managers, and no quit at launch without an audio output (8f5b700)
• History lists the first save at once; Return and Master columns can be selected in Session view (68e50a7)
• Dragging a key range no longer duplicates the Instrument Rack (96f58ea)
• Auto Filter's resonance follows the curve drag from where you grab it (96f58ea)
• The mouse wheel scrolls the device chain anywhere over it, and trackpad swipes step once per notch (96f58ea)
• Modular explains its locked nodes, uses a bin for delete, and Esc closes opened nodes (96f58ea)
• Grouping a playing effect no longer resets it, and ungrouping restores its A/B snapshots and preset label (2dc0f70)
• File panels open in the Projects folder, the live recording waveform stays in its box, and the DSP meter is the last thing hidden (794712f)
• Clearing a Volt or Aurora mod-matrix cell is one undo step, and a right-click on Volt-family graphs no longer moves the value (58f5732)
• "Save preset" on a MIDI effect's card saves that MIDI effect (c01c0b9)

Contributors
@chrislaupama, @ambertape

Install

First launch: Nota isn't signed with a paid certificate yet. On macOS, if it says Apple could not verify Nota, open System Settings → Privacy & Security and click Open Anyway — step-by-step guide. On Windows, click More info → Run anyway in SmartScreen.